


It Takes 2 Stans to Make One Functional Human Being

by tinkle_time



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: 2stans au, M/M, Time Travel, emotional issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkle_time/pseuds/tinkle_time
Summary: Stan accidentally travels back in time to a very crucial point in his life and tries to make a difference. Originally submitted to Fishingboatblues on tumblr.





	It Takes 2 Stans to Make One Functional Human Being

No fucking way.

A temporal anomaly. They’d been investigating a temporal anomaly. And of all the times it could have spat him out in –

Stan remembers the carnival there on the boardwalk. He remembers forcing Ford to go there, and Ford _still_  not shutting up about the science project.

He tells himself he won’t interfere. There’s no point in messing around with weird timeline shit.

_

Stan ends up in the gymnasium when Ford picks up the empty bag and connects the dots. He also ends up following Ford out into the hallway and tackling him into an empty classroom. Before Ford can even yell, Stan slaps a hand over his mouth.

“Shh,” he says, in no uncertain terms. “Look, I need to talk to you. Just-“ Stan peeks over his shoulder at the sound of the door – closing. It’s just closing. He turns back to Ford, who he’s got pinned under him, and it’s suddenly become awkward. More awkward than pinning a younger version of his twin brother (who he fucks occasionally) to the floor ought to be. So he sits back on his heels to allow Ford the space to scramble backwards halfway across the room.

Ford asks shakily, “Who are you?”

“The janitor. It doesn’t matter. Listen, your brother didn’t mean to break your science project. I was there last night.” Stan’s not lying, per se.

“Wait, you- you body slammed me into the ground to tell me this?”

“Uh, yes.” That may have lessened his credibility, he realizes now. “The point is- the point is your brother didn’t mean it.”

Ford rolls his eyes. “You don’t know my brother like I do.”

_What_  did Stan ever see in Ford. He pinches the bridge of his nose to quiet the thoughts yelling at him to just tell Ford the truth. That it’s Stan from the future. That he’s trying to prevent both of them from having the worst forty years of their lives.

He corrects himself. It was thirty years for Ford, who had a good first ten years. Stan’s not bitter anymore, but that doesn’t stop the aftertaste from clinging to the back of his tongue.

“And why do you even care?”

Stan drops his hand from his face and drops his ass onto the tile. “I don’t want to see you and your brother lose each other over something like this.”

“What?” Ford raises his voice. “Where would you even get an idea like that?”

“You had that look on your face, like someone about to do something stupid.”

That may have been a poor choice of words, because Ford stands up now. He walks over to Stan, scrawny and seventeen, and stares him down. It’d be funny if it weren’t so familiar. “No, the only stupid one is my brother. He can’t let me have one thing - just _one_ _thing_  - to myself.” Ford’s voice gets louder again. “He’s suffocating and selfish and he’s ruined my life now. I bet he’s happy! That I’ll be trapped here forever with him. Just like he wanted. No future. No career. No life. _Nothing_  except - him. It’s always about Stanley, Stanley, _Stanley_. It can’t be like that!” His knees bend. “It can’t always be like this. No matter what- No matter what we-” Ford opens his mouth and closes it, considers briefly, then, “It can’t always be about-” he breathes “- Stanley.”

Stan’s listened to this before, albeit in calmer terms and from a Ford his age. (It’d been as stunning then as it is now, as Ford always manages to be.)

“We- _I_  had needed to be apart” was one of the things Ford had said.

“We should’ve properly discussed it sooner” was another.

But only sitting here now does Stan see that he’d been a fool for ever believing in the lies his twelve-year old self spun for them both. Ford just saw it first.

“I’m sorry,” Stan says.

Ford straightens up. “What?”

Stan sighs. “You and your brother sound like you have a lot to work out. So, uh, I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. And he really didn’t mean it last night. It was an accident. He hit his hand down on the table, and it moved things it wasn’t supposed to.” That sounded dumb before it even left his mouth.

And Ford says as much, “That sounds contrived.”

Stan puts his hands up defensively. “I couldn’t make up something that stupid if I tried.”

Ford gives Stan a look that says he does, in fact, think Stan could make up something that stupid, but Ford doesn’t vocalize it. For all Stan’s troubles, Ford just shakes his head and goes to leave.

“Talk to him, okay?” Stan tries one last time before Ford is out the door.

He tries another time, later, though he doesn’t get very far. He thinks maybe if talking to Ford didn’t work, he can talk to himself. So he waits across the street for what still might happen. And that’s, of course, when Ford - _his_  Ford - calls.

_

“Temporal hotspot,” Ford says, now that he’s managed to bring Stan home. “Some points are more active in time than others, whether due to higher traffic or a greater amount of branch- Are you listening, Stanley?”

Stan isn’t. He’s thinking, instead, about how bright the world used to be. How bright _they_  used to be. His brows furrow, eyes on the ground. “Do you think you listened?”

“We’re not them.”

That’s a cop-out. “Think back. Would you have listened?”

Ford stays quiet for a very exact eight seconds before he says, “I don’t know.”

Yeah, alright, at least Ford’s being honest.


End file.
